DISCUSSION.

Mr. THISELTON DYER sent the following communication in explanation of the origin of the preceding report.

In a letter addressed to Sir Joseph Hooker, in 1880, Mr. H. O. Forbes wrote from Sumatra offering, if some assistance could be forwarded him, to attempt an expedition to Timor-laut for the purpose of investigating its natural history-"an object," as the writer stated, "the accomplishment of which is desired both by botanists and zoologists."

Application was made to the British Association for aid in the furtherance of Mr. Forbes's plans. A committee was appointed in 1880, which was reappointed in 1881 and 1882, and grants, amounting in the aggregate to 150l., were placed at its disposal.

After delays arising from various causes Mr. Forbes, accompanied by his wife, eventually succeeded in reaching Timor-laut in July, 1882, and remained there till the following October. A portion of his collection, consisting of a selection of the birds, has already reached England, and an account of them (including seventeen new species) was laid before the Zoological Society, on February 20th, by Mr. Sclater.

Mr. Forbes also furnished the Committee with a detailed report of the circumstances of his residence in the Tenimber group. As this report was principally occupied with an interesting account of the natives of the islands and their habits, the Committee of the British Association was of opinion that this was of sufficient importance to merit being communicated to the Anthropological Institute. Under their instructions Mr. Thiselton Dyer, as Secretary to the Committee, placed it in the hand of Mr. John Evans, for the purpose of submitting it to the Institute.

The PRESIDENT stated that the results of a cursory examination of the twelve crania which Mr. Forbes had collected were, that eight were brachycephalic, and of decidedly Malay type; one was dolichocephalic, prognathous and with large teeth, indicating Papuan or Melanesian affinities; and the other three were more or less intermediate. This is what might have been expected on the border-land of two distinct races; but the great preponderance of the first named was very marked. Nearly all showed signs of artifical flattening of the occipital region. He hoped at a future time to give a fuller account of the characters of this interesting

collection.

Mr. KEANE remarked that Mr. Forbes's experiences in Timor-laut went far to confirm the views now generally entertained regarding the extremely complex nature of the ethnical relations throughout the whole of Malaysia and Polynesia. Even in this somewhat secluded island the same conflicting elements seemed to be present as in the surrounding insular groups. From Mr. Forbes's careful observations, supplemented by Professor Flower's remarks on the

skulls now exhibited, it must be evident that Papuan, Malayan, and even Polynesian tribes had here become intermingled in diverse proportions, the result being a distinctly mixed race, such as was elsewhere in this region often designated by the inconvenient term "Alfuro." Timor-laut, however, seemed to present the peculiarity that the various elements had not here become so completely amalgamated as in most of the neighbouring islands. Hence the remarkable phenomenon of frizzly and lank hair, brown and black complexion, very tall and very short stature, dolichocephalous and brachycephalous heads, &c., all still found side by side in the same village community. The resemblance in so many of the crania to those of the brown Polynesian race of Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii, &c., was very striking, and in this connection it was noteworthy that Timorlaut must have been one of the last islands occupied by this race in Malaysia during its eastward migration to the remote archipelagos of the Pacific. It was easy to suppose that some members of the family may have been left behind, and these mingling with subsequent arrivals from Papuasia and Malaysia may have thus contributed to the present heterogeneous ethnical relations of Timor-laut.

Mr. JOHN EVANS made a few remarks upon the paper, and the objects exhibited in illustration of it; among other matters calling attention to the resemblance between some of the habits describedsuch as the sacrifice of a pig on solemn occasions-and those of the more civilised occupants of the shores of the Mediterranean in early times.

Dr. OPPERT desired information as to the language of the natives.

Mr. CARMICHAEL wished to ask whether the author had sent any explanation of the nature of the ownership of land in Timor-lautwhether, i.e., the expression, used by Mr. Forbes, "Village Community," was to be taken in its strict sense, or whether there was any definite statement showing the ownership to be resident in the Village Community, if such really existed, or the House Community, or in the tribe or the family, or, lastly, whether there was any trace of individual ownership. Mr. Carmichael also inquired whether Mr. Forbes had described the Religion of the inhabitants.

Mr. RUDLER explained that Mr. Forbes, as a naturalist, had probably paid more attention to observations on the physical characteristics of the people than to such questions as those raised by Mr. Carmichael, and he pointed out the difficulty which a person resident for only a short time in the country, and with an imperfect command of the language, would inevitably experience in any inquiry into the religion of an uncivilised people. A vocabulary of words collected by Mr. Forbes accompanied the report.

On the CLASSIFICATION of LANGUAGES in conformity with ETHNOLOGY.-By GUSTAV OPPERT, Ph.D., Professor of Sanskrit in Madras.

THE science of language is a physical science, and its proper place is in the natural history of mankind. Articulate language is a gift which a benign Providence has vouchsafed specially to man. As articulate speech is a speciality of man, and men, though differing from one another in external appearance and internal attributes, are as a species one, and further, as speech is common to all human individuals, unless they are deprived of it by some cause or other, it follows that every person is able to speak, up to a certain degree, every language. The language of the individual is the product of various elements; of the family in which he is brought up-modified, moreover, by the natural influences of the locality and the climate in which he lives. As a separate individual, every man is, besides, endowed with an intellect of his own which will occasionally appear on the surface. We distinguish clearly two very different influential elements which produce and define the speech of the individual; the one, influencing the utterance of sound, is physiological; the other, representing the manner of thinking, is psychological.

As a rule, an original language springs up in the infancy of national life, expressing the peculiar mental disposition of the community who used it, and retaining the impression which constitutes its individuality. Everybody possesses the latent capacity of speaking, as has been said before, every language; the descent of the individual need not, therefore, necessarily coincide with, or become apparent from, the idiom he uses.

Yet it may be possible that linguists, well acquainted with the peculiarities and intricacies of the dialects they have particularly paid attention to, will discover in the expressions of those who use languages foreign to them by practice or descent, eccentricities which can only be sufficiently explained by their inborn individuality. In order not to be misled into wrong conclusions, one must, in questions of language and race, take into consideration, if possible, the original and not the adopted language; and that, too, in a form the least corrupted and mixed with modern and foreign elements.

We must, moreover, not lose sight of the fact that a person who learns a foreign language, and who does so voluntarily or compulsorily, either for temporary or for permanent use, submits himself to the rule of that language. He tries to speak it, to think in it according to its proper mode, i.e., he assumes its pronunciation, grammar and syntax; he loses, indeed, to a certain

degree, his personal independence, while he accommodates himself to the whims and caprices of his new mistress. The real point at issue is, therefore, not whether the language one speaks indicates the race to which one belongs-as long as that race has been preserved in its purity-which it surely does not; but whether a language, if used by foreign individuals and nations, retains its original character. There is no doubt of it. A language preserves, as it were instinctively, its peculiar construction, and if it does not always coincide, either with the particular nation or person who speaks it, it certainly indicates the race of those who spoke it first, and this, in spite of all apparent change, and it retains the mode of thought of those among whom it first sprung up as their natural means of communication, though that race itself might exist no longer.

Languages exhibit, like the persons who speak them, the different phases of life, with its commencement and development, its decay and death.

The relationship of parentage and offspring among living creatures is also found among languages. A language can be many times propagated or regenerated, but it dies as soon as its daughter-languages establish themselves independently, or it ceases to supply a real want. In nature and construction similar, often even identical, yet a mother-language differs from its daughter-language as a mother from her daughter.

A language can adopt and create as many words as it pleases without changing its character, but it cannot alter its grammar, its syntax, without becoming another; for grammar represents the inmost mode of thought over which the individual person or nation has no real control.

This very fact proves that the original language of a people indicates its race, and vice versa. Comparative philology and ethnology, therefore, are allied sciences which supplement each other. No system of comparative philology is true unless it fulfils this condition; but no linguistic classification can be elaborated unless the expressions which define the family and social life are taken into account.

Ethnological research is deficient if it takes alone into account the outward appearance of men, as philological conclusions cannot only be based on external characteristics as has been done hitherto.

The object and aim of speech is communication, which certainly varies, in point of clearness and perfection, according to the physical and intellectual state of the individual. The ruder the speaker, the cruder the speech. Thus it is not only possible, but even highly probable, that the original enunciations of a language are interjections.

VOL. XIII.

D

If interjections are, according to their nature, as a rule short and monosyllabic, the original roots of words should be also monosyllabic. "Interjections are," as Professor Max Müller observes, "only the outskirts of real language; language begins where interjections end." But these outskirts are already within the bounds of language, and form the lines of its natural frontier.

Interjections, or whatever name we may give to the main essence of words, precede the other forms of speech; nay, they are most likely the very nucleus from which the latter are formed. A word embodies, as it were, an idea, whether this refers to a concrete object or to an abstract thought. Originally the incoherently uttered word comprised within itself the different variations in meaning as represented later by the different forms of speech. This concentration of the various shapes which mental or material essences may assume in one unchangeable body, their crystallisation in one single form, is most strikingly exhibited in the so-called monosyllabic languages, where each word represents to some extent a mere atom.

Monosyllabism is thus considered by many to be original to all languages, though only a few retained it in their later development. The monosyllabic tendency which prevails in some languages is certainly a most interesting feature, productive, moreover, where consistently adhered to, of other strange peculiarities, e.g., of a singular mode of pronunciation, intonation, and accentuation; but as the various monosyllabic dialects in different parts of the globe, in Asia, Africa, and America, though agreeing in their outward monosyllabic phenomenon, yet disagree in their internal construction by differently expressing thoughts and ideas, monosyllabism by itself cannot well be raised to a standard of classification, as it is peculiar to many idioms, which are dissimilar in other respects.

No doubt the assumption is widely spread, and possesses great semblance of truth, that the characteristic mark of the so-called Semitic languages lies in the dissyllabic formation of their roots; but whether this is really a fact remains to be proved. The majority of Semitic roots display a dissyllabic form, but many of the most important words in Semitic dialects are monosyllabic, and it is not beyond the range of possibility that the dissyllabic or triliteral and quadriliteral roots are based on and derived from monosyllabic roots.

Even when upholding the principle that every dialect has a monosyllabic beginning, one must not lose sight of the fact that this principle is affected as soon as single ideas are combined. However loosely thoughts are linked together, this juxtaposition must influence them. But this composite idea is still main